The Apple Core Dichotomy

It occurs to me that Thursday, November 4th, 2010 isthe first day of the baseball season where there will be no baseball season. At least Wednesday had a parade. And Tuesday had anticipation of a parade. And yes, I watched. My bitching and moaning about the likes of Burrell, Ross, Mota, and Matt Cain are well documented. But I quickly learned in life and in blogging that if I don’t learn to prioritize my “disgruntledness”, I’m not gonna make it too much longer before I die in a freak laptop accident.

So I enjoyed a World Series parade for the first time in about a half-decade. Because hey, I know I’ll spend the winter coming to terms with the fact that Pat Burrell has two rings in three years and Cody Ross has a ring to use as a barrel while chasing the whole “rodeo clown” dream, (alternate joke: Cody Ross has a ring to stand on so he can look Mike Pelfrey in the eye). But at least it’ll take a lot less time to reach peace this winter than it would have if we had have “Satanapalooza Part Deux“. I guess what I’m saying is this: congrats Giants … who I like to call “The San Francisco Not Phillies”. Your victory over the Texas Not Yankees wasn’t in the least bit cancerous like last season’s World Series certainly was (at least according to Kevin Garnett).

Of course, there has to be something that’ll eat at me during the winter … and that’s the fact that Dancing With the Stars beat Game 5 in the ratings on Monday. I guess we would rather watch athletes dance than actually be athletes. America … what a country.

Be that as it may, it’s time to talk about our little baseball team in the metropolis we like to call: Flushing. And the first thing I want to say is that Jose Reyes is a tool. (Click “read more” to find out what I mean.)

I mean that I’m going to use the new of Jose Reyes’ option being picked up as a … tool … to discuss what could happen for the Mets this off-season. (That’s a blogger trick called “roping you in”. Sorry I had to do that to you. But since you’re here …)

Unless you took a vacation in a cave today, you know that Jose Reyes’ option for 2011 was picked up for $11 million. And I highly doubt that the option was picked up so that the Mets can turn around and trade him. The one thing I took from Sandy Alderson’s twitter replies was that while he considered nobody “untouchable”, he did acknowledge a bias towards the homegrown player and the core player. Of course, when you say “core” player to a Met fan, you will most likely be immersed into an argument that will sterilize you. While Alderson may have given you a line to keep you from panicking and hurling yourself off a building, the hint here is that the core player isn’t going to be used to replenish the farm system unless it’s the “right deal”. Let’s face it, the right deal for a player the caliber of Jose Reyes would have come in 2008. It ain’t happening now, and I think Sandy knows that. So Jose Reyes isn’t going anywhere.

Neither is David Wright. Believe me, I’ve had this discussion. It was the kind of discussion you feel dirty for having … kind of like being peer pressured into robbing a liquor store where you get that knot in your stomach. I had that knot as I was entertaining the idea of Wright going to the Red Sox for Clay Buchholz and whoever else we wanted back for the Mets (hey, new minion J.P. Ricciardi wants the Mets to be more like the Red Sox… I’d say trading for half their roster and farm system for Wright would do the trick.) While the person I had this conversation with thinks that Wright’s 29 HR’s and 103 RBI’s were soft, some might argue that those numbers in a lineup which contained a washed up Carlos Beltran, a psyched out Jason Bay, and the sad remains of Reyes’ ailing carcass, I’d say 29 and 103 was a fairly amazing feat. If this were some “five year plan”, then I’d say yes, see what you can get for Wright. But with the realistic goal of meaningful baseball being ’12 (Wright’s final season in his contract when he’ll be 29) or ’13 (the Mets’ option year in Wright’s contract when he’ll be 30), you can still fit David Wright in his prime with a new solid structure. So my safe guess is that Wright is going nowhere.

(The only thing I’ll add to that is if Wright does wind up somewhere else in ’11, don’t blame Sandy Alderson. Instead, blame the former regime for letting the foundation rot from the ground up and leaving the current regime no choice.)

If the core players are going nowhere, the young homegrown talent is preferred according to Alderson (thus eliminating the likes of Ike Davis, Jenrry Mejia, Josh Thole, and maybe even Fernando Martinez), and if we assume that the untradeable contracts remain untradeable (Ollie, Looie, and Little Mac Rodriguez), somebody (or somebodies) is going to have to go. Two big reasons: The farm system needs to be re-stocked, and you absolutely can’t go into ’11 with the same roster that you ended ’10 with (sorry, Joaquin Arias). So some chips are going to have to be turned into other chips.

And it’s not going to be easy to find. To me, the two players who have some significant (if not necessarily top-notch) trade value who aren’t necessarily core players or young homegrown players (emphasis on “young”) are Mike Pelfrey and Angel Pagan. Pelfrey is coming off his best season which still contained a horrid stretch in July which helped take the Mets out of any sort of hope. It’s probably suicide for 2011 to trade Pelfrey with with Johan Santana being out until the Mayan Calendar is nearing its end. But to me, 2011 is a lost cause anyway. And the Mets have to ask themselves how much better Pelfrey is going to be. It’s one thing if David Wright is never going to be any better because Wright’s level is so high right now. There’s a question as to where Pelfrey’s ceiling is. If he’s never going to be better than this, then when do you pull the cord? Despite not having Santana around, the answer might be now if Pelfrey can bring back another starter along with some pieces for 2012 and beyond.

Meanwhile, in the same conversation which involved trading Wright, Pagan’s name came up. And I have to admit that dealing Pagan makes sense. He had a break-through season in ’10. He proved he can play every day. He has to be of value to a team that’s in the hunt right now, and perhaps to a team that loses out on Carl Crawford (no, Angel Pagan is not Carl Crawford, I understand this.) The argument against trading Pagan would be that you’ve gotta get rid of Beltran and his contract to make room for Pagan. But remember that oneof the big problems this organization has is minimizing the value of assets. Lastings Milledge turned into Arias. Pagan is an asset that is probably at his peak now. Remember, he’s turning 30 in 2011. How much better is Pagan going to get, realistically? If Pagan can bring back some assets for the future… because you’re certainly not going to get any value for Carlos Beltran right now … then why not think about it? The organization is high on Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and who knows which young outfielder will be out there in a trade for Pagan, so why not at least think about maximizing an asset for once? And that’s not to say Pagan is going to bring back an A-1 prospect, but he’ll never bring back as much as he will right now.

Thisjust illustrates how hard Alderson’s job is going to be for a season. People are going to expect immediate results but with all the dead contracts and the seemingly limited trade possibilities, the results aren’t going to be immediate. The decisions are going to be rough. Alderson might be damned if he does (trade players like Pelfrey and Pagan, or even core players like Wright or Reyes), and damned if he doesn’t (keep the roster that won 151 games in two seasons intact.) Outside of taking Oliver Perez to an ice cream shop at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and leaving him there, there isn’t going to be a move (or non-move) that’ll sit well with most fans. (Believe me, I know. I hate every move the Mets make for no real good reason except … I’m cranky.) But he’s put himself into the corner that the old regime has backed the team in.Getting out of it, if done the right way, might seem worse before it gets better.